"--_Weekly Paper_.
* * * * *
ART IN THE ARCTIC.
To know that you can't draw and to be told so by your friends are two
very different things. Honnell can't draw, but hates his inseparable
Swan to tell him so. Honnell's sketches have hitherto been criticised
only by people who also wanted their drawing flattered. Swan learned
bluntness on the Yukon. So they are an odd pair to be chumming now in
the Arctic circle. They are so friendly that they will tramp together
for half a day and exchange scarcely so much as a grunt of conversation.
Swan, of course, feels quite at home in North Russia and smiles at the
people who call it cold and its distances big. Honnell has lived in
Edinburgh, so doesn't notice the temperature, though he misses the
tramway system. Both can say about six words--the same--in Russian, and
both have bought a pair of moccasins--Swan because he likes them, and
Honnell because he would like to.
Recently they set off together from Kola on the Murman Coast to try to
find a village from which jolly little Laplanders and Laplanderesses
come sliding and skidding to market behind their stout-hearted reindeer.
They left all their picturesque Arctic gear behind them except their
moccasins, Swan being one of those trying people who don't care how they
look, if only they "mush" along fast enough.
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